Bracton: Thorne Edition: English. Volume 3, Page 141

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Volume 3, Page 141

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[001] where the plaintiff in making the view does not know the place where the tenement
[002] he is claiming is, and is unable to show it to the jurors, though he makes the county
[003] and the vill clear to them. If he can establish the place but not the particular part of
[004] the place, because the boundaries, the boundary trees or stones, have been removed,
[005] the assise will proceed nevertheless, because the action is for a thing certain in a place
[006] certain, and if the plaintiff recovers by the assise, let him have the amount of the
[007] tenement in some part of the place, not in the best or the worst but in some middling
[008] part; this on principles of equity.¹ The assise sometimes falls because of uncertainty
[009] as to the person, because the jurors have no way of knowing who he is, or whether
[010] he is in possession in his own name or another's. Also if the right of some land is
[011] recognized to be in two persons and one puts himself in seisin without his parcener,
[012] without partition; if he is disseised he will not recover, It also falls for uncertainty if
[013] the jurors do not know to whom the tenement belongs, the tenant or the plaintiff,
[014] though they have made the view. Also if one has been enfeoffed of some part of a
[015] tenement which was never assigned him during the life of the donor. Also if two
[016] sisters bring the assise in common and it is objected against one that her husband
[017] has been outlawed, nor was it established whether he was alive or dead, and therefore
[018] sine die, because the jurors were unable to separate the two plaintiffs, as in the eyre
[019] of Martin of Pateshull in the county of Norfolk in the tenth year of king Henry.² The
[020] names of vills must be specified just as the names of men, for names were provided
[021] and invented in order to distinguish persons and vills.³ ⁴<and things and persons are
[022] designated by name.> Hence there ought no more to be a mistake in the names of
[023] vills than in those of persons, neither in a letter nor a syllable nor in any part, as above,
[024] [in the portion] on errors.⁵

An exception is given a tenant by reason of the term, because the writ says ‘after such term.’

[026] A term is put into the writ because the assise of novel disseisin is limited to a certain
[027] time and does not extend beyond it. Time is a means of destroying an obligation and
[028] an action,⁶ for time runs against the indolent and those unmindful of their right.⁷
[029] Thus one may lose his action and assise by negligence, and thus a tenant will have an
[030] exception against a plaintiff. And just as time is a means of nullifying an obligation
[031] and an action, so it will be a means of raising them; one acquires an action by lapse of
[032] time, as where one intrudes himself, or disseises another without judgment; if he is
[033] not ejected at once, he will have an action if he is ejected after a time.

Notes

1. Supra 59, 62-3

2. B.N.B., no. 1798 (6 H. 3), as infra 208

3. Inst. 2.20.29: ‘Nomina enim significandorum hominum gratia reperta sunt’; ‘significandorum,’ ‘reperta’; supra 81

4. Not in list of addiciones supra i, 399; not in OA, MC, CE, OB, MA, MB; in LA, OC, MG, CM

5. Supra 79 ff., 138

6. Supra ii, 157, 168, 288, 293, infra iii, 168

7. C. 7.40.3.3: supra ii, 288, iii, 47